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Turkey's Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk might sleep a little
easier tonight  or not. A series of dramatic arrests over the weekend has laid bare what is alleged to be a shadowy network of ultra-nationalist killers with
connections in high places. Their hit list allegedly included the famous writer,
targeted for speaking out about Turkey's patchy treatment of its minorities.

The allegations, widely reported by Turkish newspapers, are certainly as dark as anything Pamuk ever wrote. Istanbul prosecutors have arrested 13 people, including a former general and a high-profile lawyer, on charges of "provoking armed rebellion against the government." They are suspected of involvement in last year's string of nationalist-motivated murders, which cost the lives of prominent ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and three Christian missionaries, according to newspapers.

Police picked up the trail that led to the weekend arrests last summer when
they raided a house in a rundown Istanbul district that revealed a stockpile
of weapons and explosives. A number of low-ranking military officials were
subsequently detained. The military, a powerful behind-the-scenes force in
Turkey, weighed in and a gag order was placed on investigators. Little more
was reported until a dramatic 3 a.m. raid last week on houses across
Istanbul, in which 40 people were detained.

Of those, Veli Kucuk, a retired major general, was allegedly plotting to
kill Pamuk, Turkish newspapers reported. Kucuk is suspected of running a
secret unit within police forces that carried out bombings and killings for
which other groups were widely blamed. Also arrested was Kemal Kerincsiz, a
nationalist lawyer responsible for numerous cases against Pamuk, Dink and
other intellectuals. None of the suspects have spoken about the charges.

"If they are true, it suggests there are two parallel universes in Turkey," says Hakan Altinay, director of the Open Society Institute, a think tank. "There are people who wake up every morning and plan murders of political opponents, plot coups and how to destabilize the country," he said.

Most Turks have long suspected the existence of a covert web of elements
within the security forces and bureaucracy who act outside the law to uphold
their own political ends. There is even a household name for it: the "deep
state," referring to a state within the state.

Newspapers have suggested that this network is the Turkish remnant of
Gladio, a Cold War-era program, orchestrated by the U.S. in several NATO
countries, to create a covert paramilitary force to counter Communist
activities.

The arrests are a milestone for Turkey: Kucuk is the first general officer in recent Turkish history to be brought in by police for questioning, newspapers said.

But the audacity and sheer scope of the allegations raises the unsettling
question of whether the individuals arrested might just be the tip of the
iceberg. "Who gave the orders? Who protected them for this long?" says
Altinay. "We are faced with the possibility that this network existed. And, even worse, that it might still exist."